Data-protection statement

Thank you for visiting our website and for your interest in our services. The protection of your personal information is of great importance to us, so in the following, we would like to inform you of what details we collect about your visit, and what we use them for.

What are personally identifiable data?

The concept of personally identifiable data is defined in the German federal law governing data privacy (Bundesdatenschutzgesetz). It establishes that personally identifiable data are individual pieces of information of a personal or general nature that can be linked to a particular person. Information of this type includes such items as a user’s name, address, telephone number or date of birth.

Anonymous data collection

Our websites do not normally collect, process or use personally identifiable data unless otherwise stated in the following sections. The act of accessing our website triggers the transfer of certain items of information, such as your IP address, the type and version of the web browser being used, your computer’s operating system, the website from which you accessed our site and the date and time of your enquiry.

We cannot employ these data in any way that identifies individual users. We will subject the information to statistical analysis only, and use it exclusively to improve the attractiveness, content and functionality of our web pages.

Collection, processing and transfer of personally identifiable data

We will only collect personally identifiable data that you supply to us on a voluntary basis (such as the e-mail address that you use to contact us). We will use such personally identifiable details exclusively for the purpose for which you contacted us on the occasion concerned. We will keep your data for as long as such retention is required to fulfil this purpose, or in order to comply with any statutory retention-period requirement that might apply. Your data will be deleted or blocked once such statutory provisions have been fulfilled.

Your data will not normally be transferred to any third party, unless we are legally obliged to do so, or if such transfer of data is necessary to implement the transaction concerned, or if you have previously and explicitly consented to such transfer.

Contact

You can contact us by e-mail. We will of course only use the personally identifiable details that you supply in this way for the purpose for which you have contacted us.

Right to cancel

You are of course also entitled to oppose at any time the collection, processing and use of your data and/or to cancel any previous consent that you might have granted to us for the future collection, processing and use of such personally identifiable data. Please contact us for this purpose by e-mailing info@ims-online.de

Cookies

We use cookies exclusively for the purposes of constantly improving the information that we offer to you. Cookies are small text files that are stored on users’ computers as they browse the Internet. They provide statistical data designed to help the website adapt to the needs of its users. They do not track individual usage. If you nevertheless wish to disable this feature, you can do so by cancelling the collection of cookies in the settings of your web browser. Some of the cookies that we use (known as “session cookies”) are deleted as once as you exit your browser. Others (known as “persistent cookies”) remain on your computer. These allow us recognise your browser the next time you visit our site.

Newsletter

Join our newsletter mailing list if you would like to receive regular updates about our latest innovations. This feature lets you choose the newsletter or newsletters most appropriate to your needs and/or interests.

Please note that registration requires a valid e-mail address. As part of our efforts to ensure that you do actually want to receive information from us, we use the so-called “double opt-in” procedure. Once you have successfully registered, we will e-mail you a link. Click on this link to activate the corresponding Newsletter service.

You can of course cancel your newsletter subscription at any time and likewise revoke any future consent granted in this respect. Just click on the corresponding link in the newsletter concerned. Cancellation on your part likewise terminates the billing of any further expenses other than transmission costs at the basic rates established under the terms of article 7, sect. 3, subsection 4 of the German law on unfair competition (UWG).

Google Analytics

The dispute-free use of Google Analytics in conformity with data-privacy legislation has been possible, subject to certain conditions, since the corresponding ruling of the Data Protection Commissioner of the German State (Land) of Hamburg regarding freedom of information and Google, based in turn on a decision of the Düsseldorf local authority concerning the data-privacy-compliant structuring of the methods of analysis applied to Internet usage. We naturally abide by these provisions. We explicitly remind you that the version of Google Analytics used on this website has been extended with the code “gat._anonymizeIp();” to guarantee IP-masking (i.e. the anonymous collection of IP addresses).

Please note the following with respect to the use of Google Analytics:

This website uses Google Analytics, a web-analysis service of Google Inc. (“Google”). Google Analytics uses “cookies”. These are small text files, which are saved to your computer for the purpose of analysing your website usage. The information collected by cookies on your usage of this website is transferred to and saved on a server owned by Google located in the United States of America. If IP-masking is activated on this website, Google will use only a previously-truncated version of your IP-address within the member states of the European Union or signatories to the agreement creating the European Economic Area. Only in exceptional cases will a full IP address be transferred to a Google server in the USA and truncated there. Google will use this information to evaluate your usage of the website, to draw up reports on website activities for site operators and in order to provide further services relating to website and Internet usage. The IP address obtained from your web browser by Google Analytics will not be linked to any other data held by Google.

You can configure your web browser software to block the installation of cookies. However, if you do so, please note that certain functions offered by the website may no longer be fully available. You can also prevent the collection of data generated by the cookie regarding your website usage (including your IP address) and the corresponding transfer to, and processing by, Google. To do so, download and install the corresponding browser plugin: tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

You can also disable data collection by Google Analytics by clicking on the link given below. This saves an “opt-out cookie”, which prevents any data being collected on your future visits to this site: Disable Google Analytics